Buyeo Premium Outlet / Yamasaki Ku Hong Associates Design Lab

Yamasaki Ku Hong Associates Design Lab has been awarded first prize for the invited design competition for a new landmark shopping center in Buyeo, Korea. Additional images of the project and the architects process can be viewed after the jump.

The Client Lotte’s design competition objective is to find a design that satisfies the three missions: New Landmark for Buyeo, the old capital of Korea; Fun Place, Lotte’s corporate direction for new shopping malls; Eco Design. Because the project site sits next to the old palace of Bakje, one of the three dynasties settled in Korean Peninsula 2000 years ago, we were trying to find a solution for ‘Old’ and ‘New’ to coexist; ‘Landscape’ as ‘Architecture’ was the theme for this project.

A linear band of shops are connected to form a ring-like structure that are deformed to fit into the eastern part of the site; thus created are three distinctive inner court-yards. The outer walls of the band are stone-clad so that it resembles the old castle walls and the roof of the shopping block is a ‘grand’ plaza park that provides visitors a new resting area.

The notion of ‘Landscape’ as a new form of ‘Architecture’ allows us to focus inner courts to be expressed as a ‘modern’ creature that has a life of its own; this duality satisfies a problem of mixing old and new – the roof garden and the exterior stone walls are to act as an old castle’s remnants.

Three court yards have different characteristics not only in the size and proportion but also in functional usage – to reflect different shopping categories and events; this design is based on the notion that shopping is no longer a mere process of ‘buying’ and ‘selling’ but an ‘entertainment’ and ‘cultural experience’.